“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

=Lewis Carroll

Read your verse out loud, with completely natural phrasing.
Don’t try to make it fit the meter, just read it and see
where the stresses naturally fall. (Remember, to write verse does
not mean to lose the ability to make sense or to speak
English.)

If the verse doesn’t have a regular pattern (stresses
every second or third syllable, most often), rewrite for a more
satisfying thump.

Change:

HAPpy BIRTHday to you, GUYS

to:

HAPpy BIRTHday, GUYS, to YOU

Change:

a CAStle is at the TOP of the HILL

to:

a CAStle stands TALL at the TOP of the HILL

or:

at the TOP of the HILL is a CAStle

Some variation in the regular stress pattern is likely (see
verse above): “THOSE of the LARgest SIZE,” or
“HOLDing his POCKet HANDkerchief”-in light verse,
like ours, only once in a while. Don’t vary the pattern so
that the line reads awkwardly; don’t use two variations in
a row-you’ll get prose.

Keep the same number of beats in each line. (Or alternate odd
lines with even ones a stress shorter.)

Enigma verse almost always rhymes. Most common are couplets
(aa bb), quatrains with alternately rhyming lines (abab), or
quatrains with even-line rhyme only (abcb). Rhyme depends on
stressed sounds (never on spelling) that match except for their
first consonant (actually the first phoneme: all/fall).

These are rhymes: hard/card; word/deferred; doggerel/hoggerel;
or (see above) sympathize/size, using the secondary stress of the
three-syllable word. These are not rhymes: card/diehard (LIE
hard rhymes with DIE hard); howler/bowler (spelling
doesn’t count); beaut/swimsuit (no “secondary
stress” in a two-syllable word); male/female.

If you’re willing to read (aloud, of course) a lot of
verse, you’ll write better stuff. If you’re willing
to read just a little, try The New Oxford Book of Light
Verse, edited by Kingsley Amis; or try some other light-verse
anthology. Or look in the library for verse by Dorothy Parker, W.
H. Auden, Samuel Hoffenstein, Phyllis McGinley, Felicia Lamport,
or someone else you like. Verse is to be enjoyed. Enjoy!